Certification

Certification, Licencing and Trade Regulations for Wood Products

by Michael Buckley MPhil FIWSc

Decades ago, concern for the future of rain forests was the centre of a straight fight between environmental NGOs
and the timber industry, with consumers left confused on the side-lines. Today all stakeholders are involved in
forestry and wood product issues with governments taking an increasing role. This regular bi-monthly column
will address the many issues and systems now engaged in protecting forests and giving assurances to all
stakeholders, including consumers.

Legal Sustainable & Recycled FSC

Signage at IFEX furniture show in Indonesia in 2016

The eminent Professor of Forestry at the
University of British Columbia, Hamish
Kimmins* – a keen environmentalist
and author of ‘Balancing Act’ – once
said “The environmentalists have done
us all a great favour by sounding the warning bell.
The problem is they are like the person who spots
the fire, calls the fire truck and then stands by the
side of the road waiting to highjack it in order to
put out the fire themselves.” We must leave the
solution of deforestation to the forestry experts he
concluded. Much has changed since then. Now
we have FSC, PEFC, SVLK, MYTLAS, EUTR, Lacey
and so on. At the start there were extremists who
wanted to control consumers. Friends of the Earth
in UK ran a campaign to persuade consumers to
boycott wood for windows and use PVC instead;
until they realised the error of abandoning wood
- a fully renewable resource - in favour of an
unsustainable, polluting petro-chemical derivative
drilled from the earth. They then cancelled the
campaign in favour of responsibly managed forest
products – wooden windows. In the meantime
professionals and consumers have become key
stakeholders although many remain confused as to
the truth about sustainable forestry.

In Asia there are different issues concerning forestry
than in many other global regions. Tropical, semitropical
and temperate species are grown both
naturally and increasingly in plantations. Trade with
developed countries, imposing increasingly strict
regulations, is important but so is the fast-growing
intra-Asian trade in wood products and fibre
where environmental concerns and regulations
are still only in development. There are many
misconceptions among manufacturers and traders
about the assurances of legality and sustainability,
which need to be unravelled.

Certification of sustainability
For assuring sustainability, in short summary, there
are two main forest certification systems that share
the same objective but apply a different approach.
The first to be established, the Forest Stewardship
Council (FSC), is more well-known, well-funded
and works as the governing body for its system
applied to all countries.

The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest
Certification (PEFC) is the larger system endorsing
national forest certification systems. Every national
system is developed by local stakeholders,
ensuring the national context is taken into account
and sovereignty is respected. National systems
are assessed to ensure they are in compliance
with international criteria and standards before
achieving PEFC endorsement. Only about 10%
of the world’s forests are certified, of which PEFC
accounts for 60%. Both FSC and PEFC systems
offer Chain of Custody certification of products
from forest to consumer. In addition to increasing
the transparency of wood flows, Chain of Custody
certification allows a logo or claim on product.

Legislation on Legality
As for legality, in Asia much has been achieved
partly driven by the Lacey Act Amendment in USA
and the EU Timber Regulations (EUTR) in Europe,
both of which seek by slightly different rules to
outlaw the use of and import of illegally harvested
and traded timber. Capacity of export licencing
and monitoring has been the main stumbling
block slowing progress for Asian countries
negotiating Voluntary Partnership Agreements
(VPAs). Only now has Indonesia finally achieved full implementation of its VPA after many years
since agreement in principle. Japan and Australia
are going down the same path of requiring due
diligence for companies importing wood products,
but it is not just developed countries legislating.
In South America a ‘Roundtable’ in Lima recently
focused on legality and trade promotion, co-hosted
by the International Wood Products Association
(IWPA) from USA and Peru’s Asociacion de
Exportadores Comite de Madera e Industrias de
la Madera (ADEX) to develop international markets
for legally-sourced wood products from Peru. In
Africa it is reported the UN Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) has signed agreements with
four institutions including IWPA Overseas Member
the Ghana Forestry Commission to build capacity
in Ghana for the management and exportation of
timber. The agreements will support opportunities
and capacity for small-holders and artisanal millers
in the production of legal timber to comply with
the Ghana’s VPA with the EU which will then lead
to the issuance of EU Forest Law Enforcement
Governance and Trade (FLEGT) licenses. That will
allow Ghana’s wood products to be exported to the
EU without additional due diligence requirements
under the EUTR. From these examples one can
anticipate a global movement for increased
legislation in forest product trade.

Other Approaches
There are many other issues of climate change and
carbon impact in which forests can play a major
role, so they are being addressed with initiatives
to provide clarity and transparency to customers
of forest products. One such is the American
Hardwood Environmental Profile (AHEP) which
is now available for every individual shipment of
material showing all its environmental impacts
from forest to delivery. Today there is a widening
of concern by addressing the complex issue of the
‘landscape approach’ to sustainable forestry which
was the subject of much discussion at the recent
PEFC Forest Certification Week in Indonesia.

*Professor Emeritus James Peter (Hamish)
Kimmins, C.M., Ph.D., D.Sc.(hon) has
been appointed to the Order of Canada,
in recognition of his contributions as
an ecologist promoting environmental
sustainability in forest management.

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